Couple shares 'real story' of life in Colombia

Mennonite Central Committee
Friday, 11 May 2001

AKRON, Pa. -- Armando Hernandez and Eunice Viloria were settling into a comfortable retirement. But as they cut the grass and tended the banana trees at their home in Puerto Rico, they began to wonder if their gifts of ministry might be needed elsewhere.

The couple's openness to God's call took them to Colombia, Armando's violence-wracked homeland. Now on a speaking tour in the United States, the couple wants to share what they learned on their one-year Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) assignment.

"We want people in the U.S. to know the real story of Colombia," says Eunice, who was born in Venezuela. "The churches here have a voice with their government, and they can pray."

The "real story" the couple experienced is that of a country engulfed in violence -- violence only made worse by U.S. military aid -- and of a vibrant church working for peace. Through their work in Riohacha, a port city in the far north, they saw the struggles of Colombia's most vulnerable groups: indigenous people, those of African descent, the displaced and the elderly.

Eunice and Armando, a former pastor and early Mennonite church leader in Colombia, worked with the small Mennonite church in Riohacha. Because of its relative stability, the city is a haven for people fleeing violence in the countryside.

"Every day more arrived," Eunice remembers. "They are poor people to start out with, but they go from having a roof and food to a place where there's nothing."

The stories she heard included that of "Mercedes," a 40-year-old woman who fled to Riohacha with her nine children. Armed men -- to this day Mercedes isn't sure who they were -- killed her husband on the farm where they had lived in peace for years.

The church's outreach also includes "Casa del Abuelo," an organization for the elderly offering nutritious food, opportunities to socialize and literacy classes. Many of the program's 150 participants are from the Wayuu indigenous group. Long outside the mainstream of Colombian life, indigenous people are among the country's poorest.

The United States' recent commitment of $1.3 billion U.S. for Colombia, most of it in military aid, is not addressing these longstanding injustices, Armando and Eunice say. Ostensibly to help the government curb drug trafficking, the aid is instead fanning the flames of violence among government forces, Marxist guerillas and landowner-supported paramilitaries, they report.

"The U.S. is sending such a huge amount of money to Colombia, and very little of this is going to what people need -- food and education," Eunice says. "This money is for killing rather than life."

In the middle of the destruction, the church carries out its mission.

"God is the God of history and the God of the people," Armando says. "This is what keeps us going."

Local congregations, such as the one in Riohacha, provide relief and pastoral assistance. On a larger scale, the Mennonite church helps displaced people begin new lives and advocates for peace and justice.

Eunice says a friend from a non-faith-based agency confided her belief that Colombia's people need more than psychological and emotional counseling.

"People are tired of secular help. The church can offer something that touches people on a deeper level," Eunice says.

Church members in North America, especially in the United States, also have a responsibility to pray for their Colombian brothers and sisters and to address their own governments, she and Armando say.

The couple hopes to educate people in Puerto Rico, where they have lived for more than 20 years, about the situation in Colombia as well.

While they are quick to point out the differences in the situations, Eunice and Armando acknowledge that Puerto Rico is also suffering the results of U.S. militarism on the island of Vieques. They hope the church will raise its voice against both injustices.

"But not many people in Puerto Rico know about Colombia. Mostly they know the bad things, so they're afraid," Eunice says.

This fear of kidnapping and violence affected even their own two grown children, who at first were not in favor of their parents' working in Colombia. But eventually, Eunice said, their children saw that this was where their parents were being called.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org